Area archeologica di Veleia - Lugagnano Val d'Arda

Located in the archaeological area of the ancient settlement of Veleia, the Antiquarium is in the building erected by the duchess Marie Louise to house the offices of the Director of Excavations. In 2010 both the remains of the ancient Roman municipium, that are spread over a series of descending terraces, and the Antiquarium were subject to a project aimed at their requalification, rearrangement and at making them accessible to disabled persons. The archaeological area now benefits from suitable signposting, rest areas and spaces for carrying out educational activities and for outdoor studying. Specific routes facilitate disabled people (with mobility problems or sight-impaired) who visit the site. The Antiquarium houses the material from the digs, subdivided by topic, starting from the sector with the finds from pre-Roman burial sites, and then proceeding to the area dedicated to religious cults (with the statue of the so-called Ligurian Jupiter), the Roman public area (with the casts of the Baebia Basilla, of the Tabula Alimentaria and of the Lex Rubria, the Venator stone and other architectural material), the Roman private area (with the great dolium) and to finish the section dedicated to Roman funerary cults.  The exhibition starts with pre-Roman grave goods from the cremation burial site to the north-east of the settlement and sporadic material found in the settlement itself, belonging to the end of the Second Iron age: fibulas, rings, armlets, bronze bosses, spearheads, iron swords broken in two for ritual purposes, as well as various ceramic items. The Roman period is represented by plaster cast copies of two precious bronze tablets that are now kept at the Archaeological Museum in Parma: the Tabula Alimentaria Traiana and the Lex de Gallia Cisalpina. The museum also documents the Roman cremation burial sites found on the outskirts of the town that can be dated between the first and the beginnings of the third century AD with the related grave goods that include glass ointment jars, lamps and a precious Murrino glass patera, or cup. Worthy of notice are the male bearded figure made from local stone, that can be identified as a representation of Marsia, symbol of the town’s self-government, the Lunese marble tondo bearing a dedication to the Nymphs and to the Augustan Forces by Lugio Granio Prisco – the magistrate responsible for the construction of the fountain where the inscription was apparently originally located – and the polychrome mosaic with a theatre mask detached in 1762 from an area in the southern sector of the forum. During the visit it is possible to compare the first map of the archaeological digs drawn up by P.A. Martini in 1767 with the current ones based on the most recent investigations. Veleia, in the upper Chero valley, was a Roman municipium towards the middle of the first century AD. However, traces of an older settlement can be found in an Iron Age burial site. The town was found thanks to the discovery of the bronze Tabula Alimentaria Traiana, the biggest such item from the Roman age, that became the property of the Duke of Parma Philip of Bourbon, who started the excavation work. The forum, the basilica, the baths and many other buildings, along with statues and several extremely valuable items were thus brought to light On the well preserved sandstone paving of the forum, the marks left by the bronze letters of the commemorative inscription of the duumvir L. Lucilius Priscus, who financed these great public works, can be seen.